The memory took Ror with quiet control. Nothing about it was vague, rather it was more clear than the moment he was in. The joy he felt when giving Koll’s wife the happy news was gone. Now that he stood on the stage of the Lonely Ohr, the heavily guarded ohr-tempus that took the doomed to the Underguard, his last encounter with the traitor Valung commanded his thoughts.

Buri and Ganly flanked him, along with eight members of the Stone Watch, blooded warriors chosen from the elite ranks of the Sunderers to guard the King and his family. When Ror returned to the citadel, his father’s steward told him that the courier sent to Valung with his demands had returned with his face bloodied, the demands torn and stinking of dried piss.

“You sent a courier?” his father asked incredulously. “You should have spoken with me first. Only I or Gund can send demands to the Under Chief.”

Ror was so eager to free Koll and return him to his wife and daughter, that he did not care to wait on his father’s convenience. He aimed now to correct his mistake, personally. He visited the courier and made his apologies to the man, had Gund draft new and valid demands for Koll’s return, and gathered the most dangerous killers he knew save Ridzak and Grandell.

Ganly was offered the Captain’s post in the Stone Guard twice, and insisted that his best place was right where he was, continuing to lead the Sunderers to victory after victory. Standing behind Ganly was Vor the Cold, the current Captain of the Stone Watch and a loyal friend to Ror. He had a much softer appearance than expected of a man who had survived single combat with the King of Graves, having wounded the orc so badly that the Spear Brothers came to his rescue, despite him roaring at them to let him finish the fight.

Next to Vor was his younger brother Jovi, who in one battle brandished his spear over a hundred slain human footmen in armor. Osmium Sten stood on the right side of Jovi and Vor. He was the oldest member of the Stone Watch, and was reputed to have cut down more foes in battle than even King Grar. Then there was Bloody Rykka, a woman of impressive size and strength who had taken up spear and shield after raising seven daughters. “I gave Thrond more than the next hundred mothers will,” she told Gund, “now it’s time Thrond gave me something back. I was born to make widows, not babies.”

The other four were all green to the Stone Guard, but as Sunderers were veterans of every conflict Thrond faced in the last hundred years. Hairy Harar, who’s hair and beard grew so thick he was sometimes called the Faceless Man, had taken thirty six other men to the ancient monastery of Cloud Hammer, occupied by a group of desperate goblin raiders two hundred strong. When he and his men infiltrated the fortress they found three hundred goblins. Harar was the only one of two to survive the battle, standing alone against one fourth of the raiders and only allowing one to escape, as a warning to the rest of his kin. After Harar were the three nephews of Bloody Rykka, who were all competing with their aunt for the most enemies slain.

And of course there was Buri. Big, sullen, proud and full of scorn, the man who had battled day and night for twenty years against beasts that would cause many seasoned warriors to soil their armor. But Ror’s best weapon against Valung was not any of them. Valung almost bested his father once; the man most often touted as the finest warrior in the known world. Granted, Valung wore his complete battle harnass and wielded two long handled axes, and Ror's father wore a night robe and wielded a candelabra, but Valung still came within inches of ending Grar’s life. Valung would have no fear of any of these men. They came with Ror to represent the King’s authority and to ward off the White Ring, the small army of murderers who enforced Valung’s reputedly harsh will. The former Captain of the Stone Guard was Ror’s business to tend to alone. He flexed the fingers of his right hand as the Lonely Ohr plummeted through the dark world under Obrus.

He had yet to learn why Valung had turned on his father, and how he’d convinced eight of the Stone Watch to join in his treachery. He’d been told enough to be comforted after that harrowing night, but any time he asked further questions the answers were sparing, and the full truth remained in the dark. His desire to know was rekindling as he descended deeper into the hidden depths, the savage land that was the undercroft of the world.

The memory was with him all the way down, drowning out all other thoughts as they tried to spring into his mind. He had been just a boy, not even Yemi’s age. His half-sister Klar’s screams had wrenched him from sleep. He and Halfur shared a bed back then, and his brother was hiding underneath. Ror could hear him sobbing and wanted to go to him, but he was driven into a mad rage at the sounds of panic coming from Klar. He flung their door open and stormed into the outer hall wearing nothing but his beard. He remembered how quickly his red anger had turned to pale cowardice when he saw the eight Stone Watchmen and their terrible Captain assaulting his family, a half dozen loyal Watchmen laying dead on the floor.

Ror had wanted to run back into the room to hide next to his brother, but Klar… One of the traitors had dragged her out of her bed chamber by her hair. She was wearing her mother’s favorite sleeping gown, as she always did. It was a silky blue and green garment, now turned crimson from blood pouring out of her nose and mouth. Ror’s mother was struggling against two of the traitors to get to Klar, and one of them plunged his sword into her side. She buried her mace deep into his neck for that, but the other treacherous Watchman was too strong and held her down, despite her fury.

Grar had saved his daughter, though it could have cost him his own life. He had thrown Valung aside and brought the candelabra down on the other turncloak’s helm, shattering the candle holder and knocking the man unconscious. Klar escaped through Ror’s open door and ran under his bed. He could hear both her and Halfur sobbing over the din. That was when Gund came, with Ganly and a dozen of his Sunderers in tow. A storm of bolts flew across the hall and pierced the gorgets of three of the traitors. The others closed in with Gund and the Sunderers. Ror thought they were saved, but then he saw Valung standing over his father with both his axes raised.

There was no time for fear, rage, courage, anything. There was only time to act. Something inside of Ror knew this, and without thought of the red pool growing beneath his mother while she lay on the floor, or Gund and Ganly closing in on Valung with their crossbows and halberds, Ror threw his body into the air. He reached out with all four limbs and latched onto Valung from behind. His legs wrapped around the grown man’s neck and his hands went for his eyes. His left found a bushy brow which it clung to fiercely, but his right found a socket.

Valung had screamed, a sound like nothing Ror had heard before or since. Ror had taken it to be a wail of shame at seeing his carefully planned scheme fail. Losing an eye was surely a trifle to such a man. Losing both eyes now...

The Lonely Ohr stopped and the metal cage surrounding it lifted high enough for them to exit, though Buri had to duck. The chamber they entered was lit by rush lights rather than crystals. Its ceiling was low and there were no features to the room other than a stone table and stool near the Lonely Ohr. At the end was a steel door scarred and pitted from who knew what. Buri pressed on a piece of rock that was only slightly out from the rest of the wall, and the door opened. A series of tunnels followed, narrow and cramped and winding. At their end they went down a long stair that wasn’t lit. Ror walked slowly until his eyes brightened, then hurried to catch up to Buri.

At length they came to Veigar, the long and narrow road to the Hidden Keep, where the Underguard rested and re-armed in between their assaults on the savage underlands. Veigar was a stone pathway partially submerged in water channeled from the Moroby sea, the subterranean ocean that parted the underlands of Thrond from the motherdark of Drow Primus. The road was never meant to be tread upon, instead a gondola ferried the doomed across the dark chamber. The water was treacherous, filled with flotsam from the Moroby. Large sticks and boulders strung tangled nets of kelp across the way. Veigar winded through the empty cavern and lead to a landing just outside the Hidden Keep, and only one who knew the path well could navigate it safely.

A thin and gnarled old dwarf sat on a bench beside the ferry, reading from a worn copy of the Book of Tides to the brilliant pink light of a shard of kheron crystal. “How many times must you read that old tome, Baldur?” Buri asked, his voice not unfriendly.

“An old tome for an old dwarf,” said the man. “You know this is the only thing they give us to read.”. Baldur rose and took Buri in a rough embrace. “How’s my favorite dead man?”.

“Still accustomed to the darkness, I’m afraid.”

“Give it time, lad. It’s a wonder you’ve lived to see the light again at all. Though I’m much more surprised to see you return. Mucked things up so you could come back, did you?”

Buri smiled for the first time since Ror had met him in the hall of steel. “We’ve come for Koll. I told Prince Ror of his innocence, and he’s agreed to set the matter straight.”

Baldur looked to Ror and bowed low. “Dread Highness, forgive me. I did not recognize you. It’s been half a hundred years since you sent us our latest Chieftain.”

“My father sent him to you,” Ror said to the ferryman, “I only gave him some parting wisdom.”

Baldur smiled grimly. “Pardon an old man some impudence, Dread Highness, but maybe he needs another lesson. If it pleases my Prince, allow me to ferry you good men… well I'll be a Titan's tit! Rykka, is that you?”

"Are you so surprised to see me in arms, Baldur?" Rykka replied happily.

"Nay," the old man said with a twinge of sadness, "just sorry you were never in mine. But let's not speak of streams un-rowed, we've a sweet soul that needs saving."

They filed one by one onto the gondola, Ror sitting close to the prow and looking eagerly ahead. Baldur pressed them forward with a pole of igdrus wood cut short so that the boat could only be driven along the path of Veigar. “It’s slow going,” he said, “Veigar's a slippery snake. It’s easier than you’d think to lose it, and much harder to find it again.”

They sat in silence for a time as Baldur pushed them along. The passage was heavy with gloom, as if the air itself had grown weary of existence. The walls were plain and unengraved, and the darkness beyond the kheron light seemed more a wall than shadow. Now and then they’d pass through a patch of thick mist. The water was oily and viscous in those stretches, and formed a slimy froth around Baldur’s gondolier pole. A heaviness clutched Ror’s heart when they passed through those mists. They had a dead feel to them, and a growing sense of melancholy. He began to see a vision of a man dying of thirst at the base of a well, so close to water but too weak to draw it up.

“Other than his missing eye, what does Valung look like?” Ror was eager to take his mind off the disturbing thoughts given him by the mist. He remembered a tall and thick limbed man with long black hair, but that was forty years in the past. Forty, he thought, not fifty. Baldur must have been here a long time. He’s likely never seen either me or Halfur before.

Baldur's description of Valung was much what Ror remembered, save his night black hair had turned to silver. “How big a mess did I make of his eye?” Ror asked.

"I like it well." Ror smiled, then turned to Buri. “What can you tell me of the White Ring?”.

“Much more than I care to," Buri said flatly after a lengthy silence. It seemed to Ror that Buri had hoped to ignore the question, as if he would forget he asked it when Buri failed to answer. Ror’s anger rose and he saw himself throwing Buri into the waters of the Moroby, where he could live on as a sour and sullen wraith within the sour and sullen mist.

“Shall I belt him across the mouth for you, sire?” asked Bloody Rykka. Baldur laughed.

He needs time, Ror thought, his temper subsiding as quickly as it had flared. His thoughts went to the day Cara and her family had arrived, and Gund had urged Ror to be patient with Buri. But I’m still his prince. “The White Ring,” he repeated.

Buri let out a slow and pained sigh. “The doomed are divided into rings, nine in all, with Valung above them. Each ring has a specialty, and authority over one of the others. The White Ring guards Valung, and they have dominion over the Silent Ring, who has primacy over the Seeker Ring and so on.”

“And who watches over the White Ring?”

“The Black Ring.”

“And which Ring were you?” asked Ganly.

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“The Black Ring.”

Their voyage ended abruptly after its long, wending path through the watery halls. The gate to Nastrond, the Hidden Keep, was neither guarded nor barred. Baldur opened the doors and they entered what passed for a Great Hall. A few sconces lined the damp walls and were set with dimly glowing crystals. Several large rush towers fountained out raw flame to augment the paltry illumination. Twelve unmarked doors lined the outside of the hall, and flanking the cold hearth were two stone fists twelve feet tall. A dozen heavy chains were wrapped about their wrists and hung over the hearth. The hearth was a lichyard for the bones of long dead fires, with only a thin line of blue smoke rising from a lone red ember. There were a few dozen dwarves milling around, cleaning the floors and tables, returning boards and kettles to the kitchens, and a group of six were sitting at an oak table staring blankly at an empty water jar. A couple of them turned towards Ror and his followers, nodded dumbly, then looked back at the empty jar.

“Where will we find him?” Ror asked.

“Who?” asked Baldur, “Valung or Koll?”

“Valung. I need to serve him the demands first, among other things.”

“Come for my other eye?” said a calm voice from behind. Ror turned and saw a tall and muscular old man. His mustache was shaved, and his long silver beard hung down to his naval where it was bound by an iron cuff. His silver hair was shaved on one side of his head and draped long over the other. Where his head was shaved Ror could see the runic brands of his punishment and rank within the doomed. He wore a vest of green and black brigandine and gray trousers a wide belt with a steel ram skull buckle. A white leather patch strapped over his right eye.

Ror stood stone still for a moment, holding the older man’s gaze in abject silence. He was standing in one of the kitchens over a deep basin, a scouring pad in one hand and an iron bowl in the other. He set the bowl and scouring pad down, dried his hands on a linen rag, and entered the Great Hall. His eyes lowered to Ror’s hand and the bound scroll in its grasp.

“More demands?” he asked, “Through the proper channels this time? Was it your father who wrote them up, or Gund?”

Ror was silent.

“My coin’s on Gund,” Valung continued, “your father seldom has dealings with us doomed. I think he's trying to forget we're down here. I’m grateful that you came yourself this time and spared another courier. I regret how he was treated, but that man was poorly chosen. He spoke so abusively to us, and the White Ring... well, it had been a difficult day for them already. It’s a fine thing to see you grown. You know, you look just like him, and your mother as well." He held out his hand and waited. Ror extended his hand slowly, and Valung unfurled the scroll and looked it over.

“So Grar still hasn’t figured it out, eh?” Valung said, “it just calls you prince, not Crown Prince. I’d have thought that choice a simple one. I could hear your brother weeping inside your bedchamber while you came marching into the fray, wearing the clothes you were born in. That’s the kind of courage a king needs in this world.". Valung turned and cast his gaze on the scattering of dwarves in the Great Hall. They all wearily bowed towards Ror or raised their mugs. "See? Even they agree."

Ror's heart pounded against his ribs like a battering ram against a gate. Ganly was standing next to him with a stoutly forged arming sword in his belt. Ror felt a powerful urge to thrust that sword into Valung's good eye and truly bring him to justice. Why didn’t dad kill this man? My father thinks the Underguard a punishment, but he’s given this traitor his own realm to rule.

Valung scanned the demands lazily. "If I were a king…”

“You’re not,” said Jovi.

Valung ignored him. “... and choosing one of two sons as heir, one a craven and one a warrior, the choice would have been made long ago." Ror remembered Halfur challenging Ror for calling Valung a craven. How strange that Valung was now accusing Halfur of cowardice.

Ganly rested his hand on the pommel of his arming sword and took a step forward. "Forty years in this pit, Val, and you've learned nothing. You're not the one to make choices for Thrond. You never were, and you never will be. You're still just a watchdog, the only thing you were ever any good at. Thrond will fall before you wear a crown on your head."

Valung smiled. "Was I a good watchdog, though? I seem to recall my King and Queen almost losing their lives during my vigil. Heh, even I didn't see me coming. But you're right, Ganly, I haven't learned anything new in my time down here, except for how many seconds pit shryke venom takes to liquify a man's organs. No, I've remained the teacher, and I offer a lesson as proof. You say a crown makes a king, Ganly? Ror is stealing a dead man from the grave. And this won't end with Koll. A tradition that's stood for two thousand years is about to be unraveled, by a man with no crown."

Ror laughed. "The man with the crown bid Gund Yormun to draft the edict in your hands. So tell me now, how am I a king?"

Valung's eyes met Ror's but he seemed to not have heard his words. "You were a child, and you tore out my eye after I’d thrown a king to the ground. Tell me something, son of Halfi; did that night have meaning for you? My hope is that it left a mark on your soul, a brand of fire on your heart, so that you will always know that you are made of steel.”

Ror noticed with surprise that his shoulders had relaxed and his fists had unclenched. He gestured hurriedly with his eyes to the scroll. “Where is he?” he said. His right hand opened and shut.

“Ah Koll,” Valung said, "the saved soul. Do you know why he was sent to us? You don’t, do you? I thought this one would have told you. Still have your tongue in chains, eh Buri? You speak with blood well enough. Dwarf blood best of all. Don't begrudge him his silence, Dread Highness. The things that happen down here aren’t things men care to speak of. And the Black Ring, well, they don’t have an easy job, do they Buri? False sums in his ledger, that was Koll's crime, supposedly. Lied, to Urum Brann, about his income so he could pay a lesser tax."

"Fitting end for a lying thief," said one of Rykka's nephews.

Valung fixed his one eye on him. So steady and constant was his gaze it seemed the boy might be sucked into Valung’s empty socket. “Alright," his face softened and he lifted his shoulders in a half shrug, "I'll take your thieves. I'm uncertain how this end befits Koll, though."

Ror kept his eyes fixed on Valung, but he could hear Rykka's nephew shuffling his feet uncomfortably. Fool, Ror thought, has he forgotten our purpose here?.

Valung gave another glance to the demands. "Koll never belonged with us. He’s innocent. One look at the man will tell you so. But that’s true for most of the doomed. Thieves, skimmers, ohr poachers. They don’t belong with us animals, us killers. The Lonely Horde, I call them. They all come down the Lonely Ohr to huddle together and be lonely, a herd of sheep surrounded by wolves. Some of them fight well. The rest die. But don’t fret over our numbers, Thrond’s justice provides me with plenty of fresh recruits. Now,” he pointed a thick finger at Buri, “they fought like lions when he walked among them. The White Bull’s own nephew. They saw Buri here fighting and... oh it was a thing to see, the way the sheep all turned to rams when when this big black bear strode through the herd.”

“Where’s Koll?” Ror asked. His voice shook as he spoke.

“He’s here, of course, poor fellow. He falls asleep every night in tears, you know. The Father of Tears, some call him. I watched him fight once, set my weapon down and sat on a rock, in the middle of a battle. I had to. You don’t see someone fight like he does every day. It was... it was beautiful. He wept, while burying his axe so deep into a grootslang’s neck that he pinned the beast to the ground. I saw him drive his spear through an entire column of faceless troggs, in a single thrust, weeping all the while.

"Nava, he said. Not out loud, just moved his lips. Farin, he said next. Wife and daughter, I assumed. He was an iron monger, not a warrior, but he learned, oh he learned. I could see it just... just burning inside him. He had to live, you see, for them. Just in case someone in power woke up one day, realized what a snozzled dunderwhelp the king was for sending him here and came down to set things right. Well, here you are, Ror, here you are. Tell me, which is his wife and which his daughter? Have you spoken with them?”

“I’ve spoken with his wife, Farin.” Ror’s voice was turning hoarse. Why am I humoring this man with speech? I came here for Koll, not for Valung.

“Ah. Good. She must be thrilled. I wish I could see her, and tell her how stubbornly Koll refused to let death take him from her. Is she Nava’s mother? I asked Koll once, but he didn’t have seem inclined to speak with me. I was only curious. It seemed he'd tasted death before joining us, but not the death of battle. It's different, to see death crawling or slithering or flapping toward you, than to not see it at all, but be left with its wreckage in your arms, or laying cold on a heartsmith’s bed. See he has this look when he calls out to his loved ones, as if there’s another who’s name he can't bring himself to speak. You don’t survive for the dead, I suppose. I guessed he had a wife before Farin but... well, it was wrong of me to try and pry his truth from him.”

The big old man came a few steps closer and leaned in, his shadow spreading over Ror. Ror's guards moved as one, stepping close to him and drawing their weapons. If Valung noticed them it did not show.

“I wish you could spend some time down here, Dread Highness,” Valung said quietly, “get to know some of the Lonely Horde, see them fight. Maybe even fight alongside them for a spell. You’d have some stories to take back up with you, to share with the boys in the Hall of Steel."

"I have tales enough," Ror replied, "and you can spare me one man." He wanted to say more, but he had to keep focused. He could feel each word from Valung worming its way into his mind and pulling the strings of his heart.

Valung nodded. "I can only imagine Grar put a spear in your hand after your display that night. I still say he doesn't know what he has in you. The things we war against would be worthy of your mettle, Ror. And the Lonely will suffer Koll's loss, even if I don't. He inspired them, you see. The White Ring is… well, they’re savage fighters, but they aren’t proper dwarves. They’re just monsters in dwarven skin. They don't kill to protect or survive, they kill because their hearts are ice, and killing’s the one thing that thaws them a little. They're too frightening to inspire any hope in the Lonely, they need a proper dwarf for that.

"You, my prince, are a proper dwarf, not a monster with a heart of ice. No, you’re a man, with a heart of fire. If only Grar could see your potential. The fury of Nirmo runs through your veins in full measure, Dread Highness, and you're destined for much more than patrolling the citadel and signing scrolls.”

“Now I see why Buri speaks so little,” said Bloody Rykka, “for twenty years he rarely had the chance.”

Valung laughed, a warm and merry sound that filled the great hall with cheer. Even the somber dwarves staring at their empty flagons seemed to play at smiling. “You’re right Rykka. Ahh look at you, risen from the lowly Sunderers to the lofty Stone Guard. ‘I was born to make widows, not babies’. Ha! What a woman. Only you did make babies, Rykka. Seven of them. Have any of your daughters joined the Stone Guard yet? Korra is sure to at least.”

“You’d think, but they’re all soft, despite my example. But I’ve got my nephews here to carry my torch when I’m gone. Though there’s something of a wager between them, to pass my body count, and I keep telling them to lay off or they’ll all slip through the hidden door before I do.”

Valung laughed again, then looked back at the demands. “Ah Koll, you’re not one of the lonely anymore. A saved soul. He’s... away at the moment. Scouting. I’ll send men to bring him back, then send him on up to Farin and Nava. Shouldn’t take more than three days, four at most. Will that serve, Dread Highness?”

“Why did you attack us?” Ror blurted. The question had been smoldering all these years, and had grown to a blaze while Valung spoke.

Valung smiled and lazily pointed a finger at Ror. “That's why you came down here. And here I thought you felt pity for your poor courier."

"You swore an oath to protect us. Klar thought of you as an uncle, and you sent a man into her room to murder her in her sleep!"

"Actually, Dread Highness, I only commanded Zul to bring her out into the hall so she could watch her father's execution. You children were never meant to be harmed. Grar defended her gallantly all the same, did he not?"

"I want an answer, not a recanting. Why did you attack us?"

"Alright, Ror. Alright. But I'll say this first; you knew your purpose in this world that night, young prince. If ever you feel lost or unsure, think back to when you looked down at your hand and saw my bloody eye in it.”

Valung rested his hands on the ram skull buckle of his belt. “Now, why did I try to kill my friend and King while men under my command brutalized his wife and daughter? That is a fair question. Well, there’s many reasons, Dread Highness. There would have to be. How could anyone do such a hideous thing for just one? I’m guessing your mother and Grar only told you a few, enough to pacify you for a time, and so you want to hear the whole disgusting truth from its source, all at once. You will, Ror, you will, if you really want to. But you’re going to have to come back first, for more of the lonely. And I hope you do. I hope to see you come down here again and again, with more scrolls from Gund. I hope to awaken one fine morning and notice that I’m completely surrounded by wolves, with not a sheep in sight. You’ll have Koll, Dread Highness, as the White Bull demands, but no one demands my truth from me. You’ll have to buy it, with more saved souls.”